:t3 



--*>^ •*-«■-*■-*-- 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 



ADDRESSES 



AT THE INAUGUKATION OF 



Cyrus 



T 



iNORTHROP, 



PRESIDENT 



THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA 



JUNE 11, 1885. 



BY THE UNIVERSITY. 



^^^^^— 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

AND 

ADDRESSES 

AT THE INAUGUBATION OF 

Cyrus i Northrop 



PRESIDENT 



THE HNIYERSITY OF MINNESOTA, 



JUNE 11, 1885. 



BY THE UNIVERSITY. 






Inv 



'Yfll/WW . nWvV .Uylir- 



TBIBUNE JOB PBINTINQ CO., 

PRINTERS, 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 



^rne- ^©errel • ©t-i Ye(2r(zr)ls, 



The Hon. Henry H. Sibley, President, . . St. Paul 

The Hon. John S. Pillsbury, . . Minneapolis 

The Hon. Greenleap Clark, . . . St. Paul 

The Hon. Cushman K. Davis, . . .St. Paul 

The Hon. Knute Nelson, . . . . Alexandria 

The Hon. Thomas S. Buckham, . . Faribault 

The Hon. John B. Gilfillan, . . . Minneapolis 

The Hon. Lucius F. Hubbard, . . .St. Paul 

The Hon. David L. Kiehle, . . . St. Paul 

President Cyrus Northrop, . . . Minneapolis 



March . . . Weigand. 

Praver, 

The Rev. Francis J. Wagner, D. D. 

Overture, " La Muette de Portici," Auher. 

I. Address by the Retiring President, 

William W. Foewell, LL. D. 

II. Introduction of the President Elect, with Address by the Presi- 

dent of the Board of Regents, 

Hon. Henry H. Sibley. 
Mexican Serenade . . O'Lmigey. 

III. Congratulatory Addresses, 

Professor Jabez Brooks, D. I)., 

Senior Member of the Faculty. 

Hon. Eugene A. Hendrickson, 

AluniTiiis of '76. 

Mr. James Gray, 

Member of the Senior Class. 

Gavote, "Mignon," H. Thomas. 

IV. The Inaugural Address, 

President Cyrus Northrop, TjL. B. 

Bolero . . Mosz Kuwsky. 

Benediction. 



ADDRESS 



Jjx- |^r^sid.er)f Ct/ir). Qv. ^fe©lw(^ll^ 



Mr. President :— 

The postponement of this ceremonial from its proper time makes 
it difficult and to some degree impossible for me to perform the 
dutj'' assigned me in a suitable manner. The emotions which would 
naturally spring from a real occasion are now only a reminiscence, 
and cannot with their reflected beams warm or illuminate the dull 
surface of my speech. Still the simple duty, now for then can be 
performed. 

At the inaugural ceremony held in this University on the twenty- 
second day of September, 1869, it was the pleasure of your prede- 
cessor, Mr. President, to induct me into office by the symbol of keys, 
significant of custody and guardianship. By the same token, thus 
[here the speaker took the keys from the table and placed them in 
the hands of President Sibley] delivered into your hands, I now 
formally surrender (as I have in fact already surrendered) the trust 
then committed to me. 

The simple fact that it was the pleasure of the governing board 
to retain me in your service for fifteen years is good ground, I think, 
for assuming that the labors of those years were, in your judgment, 
valuable. I congratulate myself with pride in having enjoyed for 
so long a time your confidence. Still, when I refiect upon the re- 
sponsibilities which attach to such a position, and especially when 
I look forward to the great account awaiting all, I am constrained 
to say with the apostle, that ''it is a small thing to be judged of 



6 University of Minnesota. 

you or of any man's judgment." Happy might I be if that last 
supreme verdict could be so friendly and lenient as yours. 

Of the progress made by the University during the period I have 
referred to, it does not become me to speak at large, but I think I 
may be allowed to claim that, measured according to means and 
opportunity, it was — considerable. Sixteen years ago there was 
almost nothing here, — to-daj^ there are some things which can be 
seen, and there is much more that cannot be seen. Many hundreds, 
yes, some thousands, of the choicest youth of Minnesota have been 
instructed here. What they are, and what they can and will do in 
this world was determined in some degree by the teaching and cul- 
ture of this University. They are scattered now throughout many 
states and territories, and their influence is exerted in both hemis- 
pheres. Some there are w^ho have gone over to the majority, and 
are engaged in the activities of the world beyond. Let us hope that 
the unseen monuments of your administration, and of our labors 
— knowledge, enthusiasm, hope, devotion — may be eternal. 

I value this opportunity of speaking chieflj^ because it pemits me 
publicly to acknowledge the services of my fellow teachers. But for 
laborious, continuous, and friendly co-operation of many hands we 
could not be standing where we are to-day. To those of mj- col- 
leagues who are now present, I rei)eat the thanks I had the pleasure 
of expressing on a previous occasion. M\' heart is full of gratitude, 
also, for others who are not here. Of those, most have been called 
to other fields of congenial and profitable work. Two, however, 
have passed suddenly to the better land, followed l)y the regrets of 
all who knew them and were associated with them. 

This Universit}' will grow with the greatness of our state, its fac- 
ulty will be swelled by accessions of men of the highest culture and 
the rarest gifts, but never in all her history will she enroll the names 
of any more faithful teachers, truer men, or more steadfast friends 
than Versal J. Walker and Moses Marstox. "May they rest in 
eternal peace." 

But I remember that this is no i)lace for reviewing the j^ast, however 
naturally my own mind reverts to the period whose close is incident- 
ally celebrated ; for this day — at this hour — we are looking to the 
future with bright hoi^e and confidence. The naturalregret at sever- 
ing relations and renouncing duties grown with time habitual, and 
therefore, agreeable, is merged and lost in the satisfaction of salut- 



Inaugural Addresses. 



ing as my successor a gentleman chosen by you in consideration of 
qualities tested and proved by long years of college experience, and 
by the concurring testimony of many, young men and old, who 
gratefully acknowledge his instruction as teacher, and his counsel as 
friend. 

I cannot let the opportunity pass of expressing my thanks to 
your honorable body for having thought me worthy to remain 
among the body of your teachers, in a department of work the 
most congenial possible, under the guidance of a chief who knows 
and loves good scholarship, and who believes that the scholars of 
the land ought to care for the public welfare, and can contribute to 
the forces and influence which ensure the public prosperity. 



Universitv of Minnesota^. 



As a REprESEntatlvE of thE Faculty, 



President Northrop : My colleagues of the General Faculty have 
conferred ui3on me the honorable privilege of x)resenting to you their 
congratulations upon your formal introduction into the office of 
President of the University. I do it with diffidence, yet with pro- 
found pleasure. 

We congratulate you upon being the unanimous choice of the 
Board of Regents ; a choice made with great deliberation, and after 
a thorough discussion of other eminent names. This is of especial 
significance, bringing honor to yourself, and setting forth the 
thoughtful consideration given by the Board to the highest interests 
of the University. 

We think that you are to be congratulated, also, that, when the 
c^uestion was brought before you of severing the associations of a 
lifetime, and of taking up a work new to you, among strangers, in 
this western land, you had the courage to settle it affirmatively. 
It is the fashion, in some quarters, to put contempt upon western 
colleges and universities ; upon their methods, their scholarship, 
and their alumni. This is partly an affectation, entertained in turn 
towards all western institutions, towards some, indeed, which are 
now the acknowledged peers of any university in the republic. It 
was a courageous venture, therefore, on your part to leave an hon- 
orable i30sition in one of the most venerable universities in the East 
to take the presidency of a young vmiversity in the West. Yet, 
there is much gain in doing so, for there are in it possibilities of in- 
creased honors. Here everything is young, and fresh, and practical, 
and progressive. In this State, and in this University, certain edu- 



InajUgursil Addresses. 



cational questions have been settled for years which are disturbing 
the quiet and jeoparding the organization of some of the oldest col- 
leges in the East. Among these are, the co-education of the sexes, 
the equality of all courses of study, and the unrestricted liberty 
given to the candidates for admission in the choice of them. We 
are free, therefore, from all vexations in repect to the requirements 
of admission; and, while we maintain the dignity and the traditions 
of scholarly degrees, we can allow the matriculate the largest lib- 
erty of choice in regard to them. Here, these fruits of educational 
growth are indigenous; otherwhere, they are exotic. 

We congratulate you upon the jjeriod in the history of the Uni- 
versity in which you enter upon your office. Much rough, hard 
work has been done in the years past which will never need repeat- 
ing. Of the future of the University there is no doubt. Coming to 
it, as you do, in the fullness of your powers, you will take the favor- 
ing circumstances in which you find it, and, by your wisdom, will 
develop all its resources of strength and usefulness. 

And now, sir, while we thus congratulate you on the public 
assumption of your office, we also felicitate ourselves that you are 
our President. Although we had implicit confidence in the wisdom 
of the Board that elected you, and from what we had heard of you 
there was'Tiot the least ground for misgivings in regard to you, yet 
it was natural that, as a Faculty, we should await your coming with 
some curiosity. You came, we saw, you conquered. You began to 
preside over us in Faculty meetings ; we found in you courtesy of 
manner and frankness of speech, clearness of insight with patience 
in discussion, respect for the opinions of every member of the 
Faculty, and impartiality in all your decisions. You have made it 
easy for us to consult you in regard to the wants of our several 
departments, and have conferred wdth us freely on all matters con- 
nected with the development of the University. You have inter- 
fused a spirit of earnest piety into the simple services of the chapel . 
So that, while not quite a year ago you came to us as a stranger, 
such has been your manner towards us, you have knit us to you as 
if a friend of many years. These are not mere compliments, nor in 
any degree declarations that make part of a ceremony, but the 
honest, yet deserved, utterances of independent men. 

It remains only for me to say that we pledge you our cordial sup- 
port. You have a united Faculty. There are no divisions in our 



10 Uni versi ty of Min n eso ta . 

aims, nor in our counsels. While ambitious to make our several 
departments strong and effective, we would do it by building them 
up, and not by pulling others down. You will find us obedient, with- 
out servility ; indeiDendent, without obstinacy ; men and women of 
one work, namely, that of working together with you to make our 
beloved University a university in the largest sense of the word, a 
university in which the higher education in all departments of learn- 
ing can be obtained, earnest in the search and development of truth, 
successful in the investigation of all science and philosophj^, pre- 
eminent in fitting men and women for the highest and best work of 
an enlightened, Christian civilization, that her "sons may be as 
plants grown up in their youth, and her daughters maybe as corner 
stones, i^olished after the similitude of a palace." 



As a RsprESEiitativE nf ths Alunini, 



Hon. Eugene A. Hendrickson, of the class of '75, spoke in behalf 
of the Alumni of the Universitj^, heartily welcoming President 
Northrop, and expressing in an earnest manner the wishes of the 
Alumni in reference to the management of the University. Mr. 
Hendrickson's address is omitted, because the manuscript was 
unfortunately lost. 



Inanoural Addresses. 11 



/id.(ap(^ss By Jecn^es l^ray. 



Gentlemen of the Board of Regents : Permit me first to 
thank j^ou in behalf of the students for the high privilege of taking 
part in these ceremonies. It is a mark of interest which we ax)pre- 
ciate and shall not forget. 

Mr. PREStDp:xT : A welcome from the students to-day means less 
and more to you than any of the words which have accompanied 
your formal introduction into the great office which you fill. It 
were presumptuous in us to come with offers of assistance. There 
are many things in your duties of which our inexperience renders us 
ignorant — problems arising for you to solve which we do not under- 
stand. TherefoL'e, our welcome means less than that of these gen- 
tlemen, one class of whom stand behind you with the resourses of 
the state, another with the resources of fruitful lives spent in college 
work. But in another view our welcome means more. It is the 
heartfelt greeting of young men and women with whom you are 
daily to associate. Among us you are to work and live ; under you 
we must learn and obey. A common understanding, a spirit of co- 
operation is necessary to the comfort and happiness of both. That 
understanding a year of acquaintance has established ; that spirit 
of co-operation exists on both sides of the line. Hence, as individ- 
uals and as classes, as students who see embodied in you the law of 
the college, and as young people relying on your assistance and 
counsel as a man, we all bid you welcome as our President. We 
welcome you to our state, to our halls, to our hearts. We fully ex- 
pected that the man whom the Regents should choose to succeed 
our honored retiring President would command our respect both by 
the breadth of his character and the dignity of his position, but it is 



12 University of Minnesota. 



a tribute dearer than the taste of honor which we truly pay in saying 
that in a single year you have won not only the heads but the hearts 
of the students. 

You have come to us from a college honored wherever the name 
American is known; you have left behind halls and grounds endeared 
to you, as student and professor, by a quarter of a century of pleas- 
ant associations ; you have come out from labors with a student 
body composed of the flower of American youth. What can we 
offer in exchange for such a home? Little but the hand and word 
of welcome. As students we are jjoor in great achievements, but 
rich in anticipation of the future ; poor in the enthusiasm of large 
masses, but rich in desire for the good name of our college ; poor, 
perhaps, in all that makes college life brilliant and attractive, but, 
we trust, not poor in that spirit which, indexDendent of ease and 
w^ealth, makes scholars. 

Occasions like this arouse feelings which make liberal promises 
easy. But it is in our actions rather than in our words we would 
have you place your trust; by the depth of our purpose rather than 
by the bight of our sentiments we would be judged. We would not 
be thought immaculate. We have faults. We shall make mistakes. 
We trust, however, you Avill find in us an earnest desire to be right, 
an entire frankness of conduct, an ambition to deserve the highest 
confidence you may repose in us. 

Again, in the name of the students, I bid you welcome. We bring 
as our best wish for the future that the success and honor attend- 
ing your administration may equal the ability and earnest purpose 
you bring to the great work before you, and that your high ambi- 
tion for the University, re-acting on all connected with it, shall in- 
fuse more and more into the student body a like spirit of unity,, 
ambition, and energy in their own sphere. Then having a college 
and a state to be proud of, we shall be proud ; having a faculty to 
be revered, we shall be reverent ; having a man to govern us, his 
example shall teach us to govern ourselves like men. And as your 
labors, your teachings, and your sacrifices go with us when our col- 
lege course is done, so our affection, returning by diverse channels, 
shalj meet here in a common stream so strong as to tide you over 
difficulties if any shall arise, so generous as to satisfy your thirst 
for appreciation and love, so jDure that you may drink deeply and 
feel only refreshment. 



Inaugural Addresses. 13 



PrBsident of the Board nf RegEiits, 



This day marks an epoch in the history of the University of 
Minnesota. We meet to celebrate a new departure in the progress 
of an institution which, for many years, has experienced every 
vicissitude of fortune, from almost hopeless bankruptcy to its 
present condition of usefulness and of bright promise for the future. 
On an occasion like this it will be interesting to review briefly the 
steps by which the University has advanced to its present position. 
Incorporated by act of the Territorial Legislature in 1854, it was 
enacted that the University should be governed by a board of 
tAvelve Regents, to be elected by the Legislature. The Regents were 
instructed to select a site near the falls of St. Anthony. No 
appropriation was made by the Legislature to enable the Board of 
Regents to carry out the provisions of this act, and they were 
consequently left to their own devices. The original choice of the 
"assembled wisdom" of the Territory, of citizens to whom the 
important trust w^as to be confided, was notable as comprising 
those whose reputation for integrity and business capacity alike 
was unimpeachable, and who accepted the position without 
compensation, with an earnest intention and desire to lay the 
foundation of an institution of learning, broad and deep, which 
would eventually prove a credit to the Territory and future State. 

As soon as the Board was duly organized, the first step to be 
taken was the purchase of a site, in pursuance of the injunction of 
the Legislature. After mature deliberation the present location 
was decided to be by far the most eligible for the purpose, and 
negotiations were opened with the owner. Captain Paul R. George, 



14 University of Minnesota. 

who manifested n liberal spirit when informed of the disposition to 
be made of the land, if bought. Finally, a favorable result was 
reached, by which twenty-five acres was secured by the Board, for 
which it gave its obligation, payable sometime in the future, for 
the sum of $6,000, The Regents were severely criticised in the 
newspapers, and by the community generally, for their extravagance 
in agi-eeing to pay so exorbitant a price for land, when other tracts 
of equal area could have been purchased for a less price. If any of 
these self-constituted censors are still in the land of the living, they 
havedoubless found it convenient to change their original opinions. 
For if the much-maligned Regents had accomplished nothing more 
than to have secured this magnificent site for an insignificant sum, 
they would merit the lasting gi^atitude of the people of the State. 

The Legislature, having by subsequent acts authorized the issue 
of bonds based ui)on the lands donated by Congress for university 
objects, the Board proceeded to make contracts for the erection of 
a stone building for a preparatory department, which now forms 
one wing of the main building. Bonds were issued, the proceeds to 
be devoted to the fulfillment of the contracts; but meantime the 
disastrous times of 1857 burst upon the country, almost destroying 
values of all property in the States of the Union, and the bonds 
secured upon wild and unimproved lands could not be sold except 
at an enormous sacrifice. Consequentlj'- the engagements of the 
Board could not be met, operations were entirely suspended, and 
the affairs of the institution became more and more desperately 
entangled. The Regents were held responsible for a state of things 
which no human agency could have foreseen or prevented, and even 
in the halls of legislation there seemed to be a general consensus of 
judgment that they had acted unwisely, if not, indeed, dishonestly. 
Such was the recompense these men received for years of labor and 
untiring devotion to the interests of the University. 

After the admission of the State into the Union the Ijegislature 
appointed a new Board of Regents, composed of John S. Pillsbury, 
John Nicois and 0. C. Merriman. A wiser or more fortunate selec- 
tion could not have been made. For years these gentlemen worked 
with zeal and ability in the weary and unpleasant undertaking. 
The lamented death of Mr. Nicois and the retirement of Mr. 
Merriman threw the entire burden^upon Mr. Pillsbury, and nobly 
did he sustain it until the work was successfully terminated. To 



Inaugural Addresses. 15 



Governor Pillsbury the University is more indebted than to any 
other citizen. The State and Regents are under great obligations, 
also, to the retired President, Dr. Folvvell, to whose indetatigable 
labors, judicious management, and scholarly attainments must be 
ascribed, to a great extent, the later prosperity of the University. 

The institution, thanks to the fidelity and ability of its faculty, 
and the generous patronage of the State, has emerged from the 
depression under which, for many years, it suffered, and has 
already taken a front rank among the universities and colleges of 
the Northwest. The Legislature has made liberal provision for new 
buildings ; the campus has been greatly enlarged ; the experimental 
farm, bought and thoroughly equipped from the proceeds of the old 
one, and therefore without expense to the taxpayers of the State, 
promises, under the able management of Prof. Porter, to be of 
untold advantage to the farmers of Minnesota. The number of 
students is steadily increasing; in short, there is every reason for 
the belief that the University will henceforth make rapid strides 
toward an equality with the noted colleges of the East in affording 
to the rising generation every facility for advancement in all the 
branches of higher education. 

It was no easy task to find a competent successor to Colonel 
Folwell, and the Regents considered themselves fortunate when 
President Northrop consented to accept the appointment. Under 
the guidance of a President of the highest scholarly accomplishments 
and rare administrative ability, aided by a corps of professors 
unexcelled in their respective departments, together with full 
equipments, there will be no excuse for a citizen of Minnesota to 
send his sons and daughters to other States to finish their 
education when equal advantages are proffered them at home, 
freely and without price. 



16 University uf Minnesota. 



^^Ije ||onmal Inductioij Into Office. 



General Sibley then arose and transferred to President Northrop 
the keys which Dr. Folwell had just surrendered to him. He 
addressed the President as follows : 

"I now, on the part of the Board of Regents, surrender to your 
keeping these keys, indicating thereby that you are formally 
Inaugurated President of the University of Minnesota, with all the 
rights, powers, and duties pertaining to that important office, and 
made the custodian of its buildings and other property. Having 
been elected President by a unanimous vote of the Regents, it is 
hardly necessary to add that they rejjose the utmost confidence in 
your ability and in your fidelity to the great trust devolved upon 
you, and that you may depend always upon the cordial aid and 
co-operation of the Board in your efforts to advance the interests 
of the University." 



Inaugural Addresses. 17 



INAUG-URAL AI] CRESS 



gpesid-er)f ^ypus l^0pfr)P©p. 



Mr. Pkesident and Gentlemen of the Board of Regents, La- 
dies AND Gentlemen : — I am very grateful for the words of welcome 
and of congratulation which have been spoken by my honored pre- 
decessor, Dr.Folwell, and by the representatives of the Regents, the 
Faculty, the Alumni, and the students of the University ; and not 
less grateful for the hearty welcome given me by the State of Min- 
nesota, as rex^resented on this occasion by the sovereign people in 
this most gracious assembly. I am the more grateful because this 
welcome has been given me after a year's administration of the 
University, when I am no longer a stranger, but in some measure 
known to you all. It will always be pleasant to me to receive your 
approbation ; it will be even more pleasant to deserve it. 

The first English colonies established on our shores were exceed- 
ingly slow in their development. The settlers had come from 
England in pursuit, not of wealth, but of freedom. They were poor, 
and were willing to be poor, if they might only secure that which 
they valued more than wealth — liberty of thought and of conscience. 
They were earnest men, who discriminated wisely between the ex- 
ternals of life and the real essentials of manhood. From the first, 
they placed a high value upon education ; and before they were able 
to provide even comfortable dwellings for the shelter of their fam- 
ilies, they established schools for the education of their children. 

Anxious for the higher education of young men, who should be 
teachers and guides in church and state, they founded, at an early 
day, colleges as the necessary means for preserving a proper moral 
and intellectual life. As might be expected from the poverty of the 



18 University of Minnesota. 

people, the growth of these colleges were very slow. Yale College 
had an existence of eighteen years before its graduating class num- 
bered ten men ; it was forty-seven years before its graduating class 
numbered thirty ; and it was a full century and a quarter before a 
graduating class numbered one hundred. The number of students 
was not more insignificant than were the resources of the college, 
the teaching force, the studies, the apparatus, and the library. 

The phenominal growth of the State of Minnesota during the last 
quarter of a century stands in marked contrast to the painfully 
slow growth of the early colonies on the Atlantic coast. The in- 
crease in population and wealth has been in entire harmony with 
the changed condition of travel, industry, trade, and resources, 
which two centuries have produced. True to the enlightened in- 
stincts of the American people, Minnesota has established a most 
beneficent system of public education as a first essential, and has 
crowned that system with a University for the free education of her 
sons and daughters. It might naturally be expected that the 
growth of the University would keep pace with the growth of the 
State. So far as the complete organization and equipment of the 
necessary departments of the University are concerned, the expec- 
tation is wholly reasonable, and has not been disajjpointed. I 
believe, also, that the time has now come when, in respect to the 
number of students who will enjoy the privileges of the University, 
the institution will show that it is keejDing pace with the progress of 
the State. 

So far as I can now see, a state university differs from other col- 
leges and universities in very few particulars. Its objects and its 
methods are essentially the same as theirs. Only in the fact that it 
is the child of the state, and bound in law to honor its parent by 
obeying and serving the state, does it present any feature specially 
difl'erent from other institutions. This may or may not be an im- 
l)ortant feature. If the state wants the same kind of education 
which is acceptable to the best x^art of the civilized world, the fact 
that the state controls the university is of no consequence. But if 
the state wants an education entirely different from that required 
by the rest of the civilized world, then the state'-s control of the 
university is of the greatest moment, for the state has a perfect 
right to receive the kind of education which it desires. The state 
which created the university reserves to itself the i-ight of directing 



Inaugural Addi('::>S('s. 10 



and controlling it. The state, through its legally ax^pointed agents, 
may say Avhat shall and what shall not be taught; how far the 
higher education shall be pursued ; how far original investigation 
shall be made possible; how ample or how insignificant shall be the 
library, the museum, the apparatus; who and what kind of men 
shall be the instructors. In short, the state may absolutely deter- 
mine both the direction and the extent of the university's growth. 
A power so complete must be exercised by the state with very great 
discretion, if it would see in its university any evidence of that 
growth which is the result of real vitality within. There must be 
stability in the university, a settling to honest work by the com- 
bined forces of the institution, uudistracted bj^ perpetual apprehen- 
sion of change and revolution. The seed sown in the morning must 
not be dug up at night_to see whether it has sprouted. Nor must 
the impatient husbandmen assemble with their harvesters to gather 
in the crop before the proper time for the harvest has come. The 
order and the limitations of Nature cannot be disregarded even by 
a sovereign state. It is "first the blade, then the ear, after that the 
full corn in the ear." 

On the other hand the university, in loyalty to the state which 
created and supports it, must be so administered as to meet the 
wants of all and to violate the rights of none. It cannot, therefore, 
be conducted on any narrow theory of education. Its studies must 
begin at a point which the intelligent and industrious scholars of the 
high school can reach, and they must be selected without prejudice 
or bias. Its instruction must be given with absolute fidelity to 
truth for truth's sake. Its range of studies must be as wide as the 
highest interests of the people require. And its aim must be to 
promote real scholarship and true learning— to cultivate intellects 
that shall become a power in the state, and shall augment the forces 
by which civilization is advanced and the human race is made bet- 
ter, and at the same time by orignal investigations to make addi- 
tions to the world's knowledge. 

I offer these suggestions, not because I think they are specially 
needed here, but because they express in a general way my feelings 
with reference to the manner in which the state should exercise its 
power of control ; and I am the more happy to express these views 
because, after a year's experience, I find that it is the manner in 
which the state does exorcise its power of control. 



20 Unhersity of Minnesota. 

A university is not born in a day, either by private or public 
liberality. Time is needed for the assembling of all the elements, 
personal and material, that shall constitute the forming power of a 
university ; and not less time, certainlj^ to inspire that confidence 
in the public mind in respect to the new institution which shall turn 
into its halls, and away from older institutions, the currents of 
poxDular support. With entire confidence in the wisdom and ability 
of those who laid the foundation of this institution and have had 
the administration of its affairs, I shall not permit myself to doubt 
for one moment that with the generous support of the State, the 
wise oversight of the Board of Regents, and the cordial and earnest 
co-operation of an able Faculty of instructors, this University can 
be made so good as to command the confidence of the public and to 
receive the support of the public. 

Many of the questions relating to the higher education, which 
have been vigorously" discussed in Europe and America for some 
years, do not need to be discussed here and now. Some of these 
questions have been practicallj" settled, some of them are of little 
importance, and most of the others are rapidly finding their 
proper answer through experience and trial. Yet the verj' radical 
changes which have but recently been introduced into some of our 
oldest universities, prove most clearly that no perfectly satisfac- 
tory systein of education has yet been devised. With the multipli- 
cation of sciences and the enlargement of histories and literatures, 
there must inevitably arise a tendency to cut off those branches of 
study which can furnish no better reason for occupying the place 
they do occupy than that they impart discipline of mind — a tendency 
in other words, to seek discipline as far as possible in studies which 
not only make the mind capable of work, but also furnish the mind 
with material for work. And j^et, I cannot but think that this ten- 
dency, so far as it shall lead to a total surrender of those studies 
which experience has adjudged to be most salutary for x^iu-poses 
of discipline, ought to be resisted rather than encouraged. There is 
no principle in education more important than this, that attain- 
ments in even the most practical departments of knowledge must 
be based upon a broad general culture. It is with education as with 
building — no matter what may be the style of architecture, the 
superstructure must stand upon a solid foundation or it is worth- 
less. And in the laying of foundaHons there has never been but one 



Inaugural Addresses. 21 

principle to govern, and that is that the foundation shall be solid, 
capable of supporting the superstructure. The foundation is not as 
ornamental as the rest of the structure, but it is not on that 
account the less important. The foundation is not what the archi- 
tect spends his highest powers upon, but it is not on that account 
the less important. Your Gothic arches, your Corinthian or Doric 
columns will all tumble to the dust without the faithful, conscien- 
tious work of the mason as he lays the strong foundation upon 
which all is to stand. No combination of different kinds of archi- 
tecture can be made which will render the solid foundation unneces- 
sary. And, in my judgment, no arrangement of studies for the 
purpose of education can be made which will not require the grand 
discipline of mathematics and languages as a foundation. These 
studies are not merely disciplinary ; they are literally the foundation 
upon which other studies rest. Upon our knowledge of mathematics 
depends our power to master the whole realm, not merely of phy- 
sical, but even of economical science; and upon our knowledge of 
languages depends our accuracy in the use of our own tongue as 
well as our mastery of the past, as revealed in literature, language, 
and history. Those persons, therefore, who tell us that there is so 
much to learn that we must hurry, and must begin with the X3rac- 
tically useful, meaning thereby that we must omit the time-honored 
training of mathematics and languages, either do not know what 
they are talking about, or they exhibit something worse than mid- 
summer madness. 

The problem in education is, "How shall the young be best fitted 
to perform the highest work for their own age and the ages that are 
to come." It is, in form, the same problem which has exercised the 
ingenuity, the learning, the philanthropy, and the piety of all past 
time. But the answer to this problem cannot always be the same, 
for there are elements in the problem which are constantly chang- 
ing. The human mind, indeed, remains substantially the same. 
The child born m the nineteenth century is as helpless and ignorant 
as the child born in the sixteenth century. Thanks to the laws of 
heredity, and to the increased cultivation of a long line of ancestors, 
there are, doubtless, in his mental faculties greater possibilities of 
development than there were in the infant of the Sixteenth century. 
But, practically, in both we start with a blank and write upon 
the tablets of the mind whatever we can write and the tablets 



22 Univf^rsitv of Minnesota. 



can receive. But the other elements of the problem are not invari- 
able. The amount and kind of knowledge imparted in an educa- 
tional course must vary with the range and value of knowledge 
possessed by the human race. 

The world's progress must be recognized by the universities; and, 
as they cannot impart all knowledge, they must impart the most 
important knowledge. Xo one supposes that the most important 
knowledge to-day is what would have been called so three centuries 
ago. Again, with the growth of knowledge the ages change amaz- 
inglj' in the character and scope of their pursuits, so that the learn- 
ing which would have fully equipped a man for useful service to his 
age three centuries ago, would to-day leave him helpless, and isolated 
from the activities and thought of the age. It is plain, then, that 
the so-called completed education of the nineteenth centurj'- must 
be very different from the completed education of the sixteenth 
century. The new branches of knowledge by which man has been 
made more clearly the master of Nature, by which human comfort 
and human happiness have been so greatly increased, and by which 
every department of human industry will be more and more affected, 
as new inventions or discoveries shall add to or destroy the value 
of invested capital, these must not be omitted from a curriculum 
which x3urports to fit a student for the activities, the struggles, the 
conflicts of this terribly competitive age. It is these studies which 
depend for their importance ui)on those elements of the problem 
which are variable — namely, the absolute range of human knowl- 
edge, and the requirements of the age; and it is these studies, there- 
fore, which must be changed from time to time, as the state of 
knowledge and the requirements of the age shall demand. But 
there are other things to be secured by education which do not de- 
l^end upon these changing elements of knowledge and ages. These 
are clear thinking, logical reasoning, the power to observe and to 
infer, to discover truth and to enforce it. These things are needed in 
every age and m every condition of human knowledge. They belong 
to that element of the x>roblem which is unchanging — the human 
mind itself. The laws of the human mind remain unchanged from 
age to age, unaffected bj^ all the inventions and discoveries which 
revolutionize human industries. The method of culture for the 
human mind may, therefore, properly remain the same from age to 
age, if any method has been discovered which confessedh'' is effec- 



Inaugural Addresses. 23 



tive. Such a method has been discovered. It is through the disci- 
phne of the mathematics and the languages. The utihtj^ of this 
method has been demonstrated by experience. Its utiUty cannot 
grow less so long as the human intellect remains what it is. This 
disciplinary process, therefore, as effectively fitting the mind to deal 
with the higher iDroblems of practical knowledge is not to be given 
up at the call of panic-stricken theorists who, catching a glimpse of 
the immensity of God's Universe, are in such a hurry to master all 
its secrets that they want to begin to calculate eclipses before they 
have studied arithmetic. 

But every one can see that the sooner the disciplinary studies of 
education are completed, the better ; provided their work has been 
well done. It is a poor plan to build without any foundation, but 
it is equally bad to be always laymg foundation and never building. 
Against both of these errors the university ought to guard by insist- 
ing upon the laying of the proper foundations in the preparatory 
schools, and in the earlier years of the university course, and by in- 
sisting upon the building of some part of a symmetrical and useful 
superstructure in the later years of the university course. 

The only way to secure such a desirable condition of things is not 
merely to establish reasonable requirements for admission to the 
university, but to insist upon those requirements in all cases. The 
excellence of a college is not measured by the number of its students. 
It is easy to secure large numbers of students if little preparation 
is required, and that little is dispensed with when not found. Bet- 
ter have a few students who are real scholars, than a thousand who 
ought to be in the common schools. The most hopeful sign for the 
university to-day is that the standard of scholarship in our high 
schools is steadily rising. As the perfection of the state's educa- 
tional system increases, the requirements for admission to the 
university should be gradually raised, so that a higher grade of 
scholarship may be secured. To this process there is, of course, a 
necessary limit. The youth of fifteen years cannot be expected to 
know very much more to-day than the youth of the same age ten 
years ago might have known ; for both start from the same X)oint 
of absolute ignorance, with the same mental powers, and have the 
same time for development. Whatever superiority the youth of 
to-day may evince will be largely due to improved methods of in- 
struction. There can be no doubt that the methods of instruction 



2 4 Universi ty of Minn eso ta . 

at the present time are in most respects superior to the methods of 
former times. They certainly produce men with far more knowl- 
edge, and I think I may safely say that they x^roduce scholars with 
much greater culture than did the methods of former times. But I 
very much doubt that they produce more vigorous thinkers than 
did the former methods — better scholars but not mightier men. 
And the reason of this is evident. The amount required to be 
learned has been vastly increased ; but the paths of learning have 
been made smooth and level — evevy possible facility for the acquisi- 
tion of knowledge is given to the student, every possible ray of light 
is concentrated upon the page he is to learn. As a consequence, 
rapid progress is possible and comj)aratively easy. Almost all that 
is needed on the part of the student is industry and a good memory. 
His mind is a reservoir into which every one of his instructors 
IDOurs as much of knowledge as he possibly can. But the human 
mind has other faculties than memory, and for the proper develop- 
ment of the mind these other faculties ought to be exercised. Abra- 
ham Lincohi was a man, as he described himself, of "imperfect 
education." What did he know of the simple beauties of Homer, 
or of the philosophy of Socrates, or of the divine energy of Demos- 
thenes, or of the xjolished eloquence of Cicero, or of theEpicurean ele- 
gance of Horace? Yet where was the man in the Tnited States who 
could have constructed better the argument in his Cooper Institute 
speech, or could have created that marvel of simx)le but sublime 
eloquence, his speech at Gettysburg ? He dicl not know many things, 
but he knew some things, and ux)on them he had thought, bringing 
into exercise all the faculties of his mind, and thereby developing — 
not what we call scholarship, but something which is far above 
scholarship — the broadest, highest, most perfect manhood of the 
intellect. He studied Euclid until he knew what "demonstrate" 
meant. When he knew what "demonstrate" meant, he knew how 
to demonstrate, not merely propositions in Euclid, but prox)ositions 
affecting the national prosperity and life. It was not with him a 
mere matter of memory. It was not the docile following in the 
steps of a teacher. It was iDrofound thinking upon what he studied; 
a complete assimilation to his own intellect of the processes of rea- 
soning; an absolute appropriation of the certain courses of mathe- 
matics to the jjurposes of his own mind in everj' department of life. 
And so he became something more than tlie legal humorist of a 



Id augural Addresses. 25 



country town ; something more than a poHtician and a political 
orator; something more than a member of congress; something 
more than a President. Amid the desolation of a great civil war, 
beneath the cloud of doubt and uncertainty which hung oyer the 
destinies of the nation, tortured by the envenomed shafts of his 
enemies, and crucified by the distrust of his friends, wrapping him- 
self in a mantle of seemingly cheerful levity, he thought profoundly 
upon the awful problems which concerned the destinies of his 
country, and he solved them, demonstrating to the country the cor- 
rectness of his solution ; and thus he became at last the embodied 
conscience, patriotism, thought, and force of the nation — and the 
tears that fell in every loyal household of the country, when he died, 
attest the moral and intellectual greatness of this man "of imper- 
fect education." 

The lesson of all this is not far to seek. It is that real education, 
perfect or imperfect, is something more than the mere acquisition 
of knowledge. It is the appropriation of knowledge in such a way 
as to produce power. Real education is self-education. It is the 
result of work done by the student and not for him. The mind is 
not a reservoir. It is a living organism, and what we put into it 
must be its nourishment and make it grow. And it is just here, 
if anywhere, that our modern system of education is in danger of 
breaking down. We are in great danger of substituting '' cramming " 
for training, and of making human minds "reservoirs, something 
merely receptive, instead of living springs capable, under proper 
management, of throwing out larger and better streams." I am 
not indifferent to the acquisitions of students, but I am far more 
concerned for their growth. I am not indifferent as to what stu- 
dents shall study, but I am more concerned as to how they shall 
study. If natural science, for example, is so studied as to make the 
student master of nothing but the results of previous investigators' 
observation and induction, without developing in the student both" 
the power and the habit of observation and induction, it seems to 
me that it is not studied in the right way. If the classical languages 
are so studied that no mental discipline is derived from the care- 
ful observation of the laws of the language, and no culture is gained 
as the poetry and eloquence and philosoijhy of Greek and Roman 
thinkers are converted into lifeless, and, it may be, hideous English, 
it seems to me that the classics are not studied in the right way. 



2(3 University uf Minnesota. 



And if history is studied in such a manner that the student gains 
from it nothing more than the abihty to answer an unlimited num- 
ber of questions as to the dates of battles and the sequence of 
rulers, it seems to me that history is not studied in the right way. 
I have thus dwelt upon the disciplinary part of education be- 
cause, important as it is, it is yet likely in this age of hurrj^ to be 
overlooked, and. because, when it has been properly attended to, 
other things will almost take care of themselves. The scholar is to 
be developed before the specialist, and the man before the states- 
man. In the higher work of the University it is eminently proper 
that there should be a reasonable degree of choice given to the 
student as to what branches he shall study. When the intellect has 
been properly trained by theearly disciplinary studies, it is no degra- 
dation either of the student or of scholarship to suffer the learner to 
pursue those studies for which he has some aptitude as well as some 
positive taste. It is the veriest humbug in education that a man 
must always study what he most dislikes, and must always try to 
do what it is a, priori probable that he can never do well. It is like 
trying to make painters of the color-blind and orators of the 
deaf and dumb. Why may we not heartily try to develop and 
make the most of those faculties God has given us, instead of trying 
to su^iplement Gods work by developing faculties He never gave 
us? If. therefore, a man has a taste for the study of nature, and 
an aptitude for the scientific method of investigation, by all means 
let him devote himself to nature and the study of her laws. He will 
do better work and be in all respects a better man by following the 
natural bent of his mind, than if he were shut up to the study of 
Greek tragedy, for which he has no natural taste. So, too, the man 
of poetic feeling, of imagination, with a taste for literature and a fac- 
ulty for acquiring languages, and who hopes some day himself tobea 
literary artist, why, after j'ears of mental discipline in preparatory 
schools, should he be required to keep on to the end of his univer- 
sity course in mathematical and scientific studies with the student 
who expects to be a civil engineer or an analytical chemist? 7s it 
"degrading" to exercise common sense in education, and adapt 
means to ends? 7.s it "degrading" to suffer a man to learn what he 
expects to spend his life in doing? Or does high education consist 
in making a man try to do what he can never do well, and what, of 
choice, he would never do at all? The ultimate object to be se- 



Tiuiw' u in I . I cldiu^sscs. 



cured by education, so far as intellectual training is concerned, is 
power. But this power is not to be gained Vjy devotion to any 
single dei^artment in a university course. No student in a univer- 
sity, unless he is in the professional and technical schools, ought to 
be an embryo minister, doctor, or lawyer, or an embryo politician, 
chemist, or teacher, looking only to what will pay in his life-work. 
The future statesman will not be injured by knowing something of 
intellectual philosophy and ethics, as well as political economy and 
history; and the future clergyman may well study the economic 
sciences and history of this world before he devotes himself exclu- 
sively to the contemx-)lation of the next world. The university 
ought, doubtless, to throw some light upon the future path of its 
scholars; but it ought, also, to keep the culture of its scholars as 
broad as possible to the very last moment of their student life- 
Before they enter upon their professional studies, the university 
ought to have corrected forever their intellectual near-sightedness, 
and ought to have created in their minds a conviction that there 
are more thmgs in heaven and earth than are dreampt of in their 
technical or professional philosophy. It ought to have taught them 
that the highest attainments of the intellect are little more than 
the perception of harmony in the laws of matter and of spirit — a 
harmony that was as perfect before man discovered it as it is now, 
but with the creation of which he had nothing to do. It ought to 
have taught them that the same truth holds good with reference to 
all their so-called arts and sciences — that language existed before 
grammar; that poetry and oratory flourished before rhetoric; tha.t 
elements combined according to invariable laws before chemistry 
was known ; that feeling, thought, and Avill existed before mental 
philosophy ; that nations, governments, and statesmen flourished 
before political economy became a science; and that God made and 
ruled the universe before there was what men call ''systematic 
theology." The scholar rejoicing in the discoveries that the human 
mind has made, may yet well be humble when he reflects that they 
are all nothing more than the finding out of the laws according to 
Avhich the Master mind has ordained that the universe shall move; 
and that the sum of human acquisition is less than the veriest 
primer of science as known to the great Architect of all. 

A very common demand at the present time is that education 
shall be "practical " — a very just demand, indeed, if by ** practical " 



2 8 Un i vorsi t} ' of Min n eso ta . 

is meant "useful" — but a very degrading demand, indeed, if "practi- 
cal" means merely "money-making." This is unquestionably a 
practical age. Ours is a comparatively new country. It is natural 
that material interests should be prominent in the minds of the 
people. Great ijossibilities of accumulating wealth exist, and 
wealth brings with it far more than formerly. The fairl}^ educated 
man to-daj^ finds wealth an effective means of adding to his pleas- 
ures, giving him joys that are purely intellectual. He can read with 
delight the best authors. He can fill his house with the most 
charming works of art. But, after all, it is education which makes 
it possible for a man to enjoy the things in literature and art which 
wealth can procure. Wealth is a great convenience and comfort ; 
education is a necessity. If either must be sacrificed let us not so 
degrade our human nature as to think for a moment that educa- 
tion, the development of the human mind, its tastes, its preception, 
its powers, ought to be sacrificed to wealth, thepower to buy horses, 
and wines, and houses, and delicacies for the delight of the body. 
Heaven save us from such a materialism as that. Yet, it cannot 
be denied that the tendency to seek wealth with an utter absorb- 
tion of interest, as if wealth for its own sake were the one thing 
needful, is altogether too common. It shows itself not merely in 
the restless, exciting, reposeless life of our peoi)le; but, what is much 
more sad, it shows itself in the rapidly diminishing classes as you 
go higher and higher in our schools. It shows itself in the smaller 
classes in the closing years of our I'niversity course. "Get just 
enough education to enable you to make money, and then make 
money." That is the theory of life of too many. This is an un- 
healthy state of things. We are not living in such a primitive age 
that any such devotion to material interests is necessary. There 
are no forests that must be felled, no fields that must be broken up 
and sowed with wheat, no railroads that must be built, no new 
towns that must be founded, and all at once, so that our boys must 
come out of school half educated in order to help. This country is 
prosperous enough, Minnesota is rich enough to give an education 
to her sons and daughters; and if, through overvaluing wealth or 
undervaluing learning, this education is not gained by the youth of 
our commonwealth a most terrible mistake is made. The life is 
more than meat; the man is more than his environments. 
But the people of this country are too wise to follow any business 



Inaugural Addressf^s. 29 



a great wliile unless it pays. There is no reason why they should 
follow education more than anything else unless it pays. It is then 
plainly the business of the University to furnish an education that 
will pay for the time and labor expended in getting it It is also the 
business of the University to cultivate such a taste as will prevent 
the profitableness of education from being judged by a money stand- 
ard — a taste that will recognize the fact that Agassiz, famous for his 
scientific attainments and a benefactor of mankind by reason of his 
scientific discoveries, was nobler when he said that he had no time 
for making money, than he would have been had he used his knowl- 
edge successfully for acquiring untold wealth. How, then, can the 
University prove its real value to the State? It must not only 
be able to give instruction in all true learning, but it must be 
something more than a school for teaching. It must be in the high- 
est sense a seat of learning, not merely of learning as represented in 
libraries and museums, though it should be rich in these, but of 
learning as represented in the scholarship of its various faculties. 
Its value is not to be measured by the number of its students or 
graduates. No arithmetical calculations which shall seemingly 
show the cost of educating each student can tell the profit or I'oss 
to the State. For, in the first place, the education of the students 
in the University will be but a part, and not necessarily the largest 
part, of the good which the University will do. Its influence ought 
to be felt not here alone in the academic buildings, but in every 
school in the whole State. It is not the common school which 
pushes up the University ; it is the University which lifts up the 
common school. It does this by setting up a higher standard of 
excellence in scholarship ; by opening wider and more interesting 
fields of study; by creating a better and more positive taste for 
learning; by holding out inducements to every scholar to pursue his 
studies longer and avail himself of all the advantages of education 
furnished by the State; and by stimulating scholars and teachers 
alike to do good and faithful work, by the prospect of reward in 
admission to the higher work of the University. 

Again, one mind thoroughly trained may be of more service to 
the State than ten thousand untrained. A Morse and a Whitney 
compensate for all that it costs to train a whole generation. No 
one can forecast the future of any scholar. We must train as many 
as we can, hox^ing good things of all, and expecting great things of 



30 University of Minnesota. 



some. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said of a class of one hundred 
and fifty young men, in an Eastern college, that there must be 
among them three or four that it was worth while to try to make 
something of. I think it is worth while to try to make something 
of the whole one hundred and fifty. Perhaps only three or four can 
be "something" as Emerson would estimate "something" ; but the 
highest success in life is often the result of such a combination of 
intellectual and moral faculties as the deepest philosox^her would 
find it hard to explain ; and in most young men, if proper observa- 
tion of their capacity is made, and proper direction given to their 
energies, there will be found tlie making of a useful man in some 
department of intellectual labor, even if they be not what Emerson 
would call "something." 

But the best results for the students cannot be obtained by mere 
routine teaching. President Garfield was a gi'aduate of Williams 
College, with a not unnatural enthusiastic admiration for Mark 
Hopkins, the president of that institution. In an address delivered 
at Washington the year before he was elected president, Garfield 
said: "It has long been my opinion that we are all educated, 
whether children, men, or women, far more by personal influence 
than by books or the apparatus of schools. If I could be taken 
back into boyhood to-day, and had all the libraries and apparatus 
of a university, with ordinary routine professors, offered me on the 
one hand, and on the other a great, luminous, rich-souled man, such 
as Dr. Ho^jkins was twenty years ago, in a tent in the woods alone, 
I should say. ' Give me Dr. Hopkins for my college course, rather 
than any university with only routine i^rofessors.' The ^Drivilege 
of sitting down before a great, clear-headed, large-hearted man, and 
breathing the atmosphere of his life, and being drawn up to him 
and lifted up by him, and learning his methods of thinking and 
living, is in itself an enormous educating j^ower." And what Gar- 
field said of Dr. Hopkins, many a student at Rugby, even after a 
full experience of either Oxford or Cambridge, would undoubtedly 
have said of Dr. Arnold, the master of Rugby. We can sympathize 
with this general idea that communion with a large-minded and 
large-hearted man is of itself a liberal education. But while in its 
spirit this is true, in its letter it is false. The education of the 
present day is too comj^lex to be derived from any one man, so 
that the instruction in various departments, even by routine pro- 



Inaugural Addresses. 31 



fessoi's, may be of no little value. But, nevertheless, the idea con- 
tained in the passage I have quoted is of great importance. Inspira- 
tion without instruction is of little vakie. We all admit that. 
But instruction with inspiration is worth a great deal more than 
instruction without inspiration. And so, in order that the best 
may be secured for every student, there is need of that enthusiasm 
on the x)art of each instructor which springs from a thorough 
appreciation of the value of the knowledge which he proposes to 
impart, and from a sense of responsibility as being intrusted with a 
department of learning in which to make researches for the good of 
the world — an enthusiasm which cannot fail to produce zeal in 
study and earnestness in teaching. 

Our students are less mature, less advanced in both years and 
study than are the students in German universities. They cannot, 
therefore, wisely be allowed the same absolute freedom, and be so 
entirely exempt from oversight as are the students in these foreign 
universities. They are in that part of their life when character is 
forming with great rapidity ; the influences about them ought to be 
of such a kind, therefore, as will conduce to the formation of the 
best character. They need to be taught ethics, and the highest kind 
of ethics — not as a series of independent rules, but as a consistent 
science. They need to be guided by the example of those who are 
set over them for instruction, and this example should be the best 
possible as it certainly will be very powerful. A true life in a teacher 
is more potent for good than any dogmas however correct. A sense 
of honor, a regard for truth, the practice of virtue, the recognition 
and observance of all those obligations which rest upon us as in- 
dividuals and as social beings, not omitting the highest of all obliga- 
tions, those which we owe to God,— certainly the value of all these 
cannot be overlooked by wise educators anywhere ; and it will not 
be overlooked here. We cannot, as we cultivate the minds of the 
young, be indifferent to the moral purposes which shall control 
them and shall determine the uses to which increased mental power 
and knowledge will be X-)ut. Education is far from being in itself a 
panacea for human ills. It is alike a power for evil and for good. 
It renders much greater the possibilities of both. If devoted to evil 
it becomes a curse both to its possessor and to mankind; but if con- 
secrated to the service of mankind, and thus to the glory of God, 
its value is beyond calculation. This University is not and cannot 



32 University of Minnesota,. 

be sectarian. It is not and cannot be partisan. But it is, it can 
be, and it shall be faithful to truth. I am not an agnostic, and I do not 
propose to become an instrument for making agnostics of others. 
I think that life is worth living, but I should very much doubt it if 
I did not believe that there were for every human being possibilities 
of glory and honor and immortality hereafter, revealed in the Gos- 
pel of Jesus Christ. Cherishing this belief as in some measure the 
inspiration of life, I must be permitted to act in all my relations, 
public and private, as befits a man who does cherish such a belief — 
and I know that far greater evil will come to those entrusted to my 
care should I be faithless to my belief, than will ever come from the 
strictest fidelity thereto. 

The success of the University in its work will depend very largely 
upon the harmony and concert of action of its instructors. The 
University is a kind of family. It ought to be bound together like 
a family by oneness of interest. The law which governs its inner 
life, like that which governs the inner life of the family, should be 
the law of love. There must be authority in both. Weakness is 
not love. Law is not cruelty. But it is not by an arbitrarj^ exercise 
of power that a good father secures the obedience of his children. 
It is not by selfishness, isolation, or indifference to the common 
good that brothers and sisters make their home-life delightful. A 
common regard for the good of the family, and a common love of 
each member of the family for all the others, are the only forces by 
which a happy and prosperous home-life can be secured. So in a 
university there must be on the part of each instructor a desire to 
promote the highest interests of the institution, and a readiness to 
co-operate with the rest of the instructors in everj^ effort to pro- 
mote the general good. 

The course of study in this University seems to me to be charac- 
terized by a wise conservatism, which is reverent towards all that 
is good in the education of former times, and by a wide-awake spirit 
of progress, which appreciates the learning of the iDresent. For ex- 
ample, I am very glad that provision is made for teaching both 
Greek and Latin; and I sincerely hope that an increasing number 
of students will from year to year manifest a desire to take a com- 
plete classical course. On the other hand, it is no less pleasant to 
observe that the study of modern languages is here made specially 
prominent, and that more than ordinary facilities are afforded for 



Inaugural Addresses. 33 



acquiring a knowledge of the Romance, German, Scandinavian, and 
English languages and literatures. When one reads the clear and 
vigorous English of such a scientist as Professor Huxley, he appre- 
ciates the fact that culture in language is not incompa.tible with the 
highest scientific attainments, and is of the greatest value as a 
preparation for communicating scientific truth. A scientific cours^ 
ought to embrace a generous culture in language ; and when it does, 
the liberal development of this department becomes of the highest 
importance to the state. The same principle applies to the College 
of Mechanic Arts, a department which if properly developed can 
hardly fail to be attractive to many students, and to be of very 
high practical value. I speak of these points merely by way of 
illustration, and not as an attempt to discuss the curriculum of the 
the University. 

If the work done here is as good as the ]possibilities are great 
there is no reason why a student should not here gain an education 
that will qualify him for the practical work of life, or for the prose- 
cution of his studies and investigations in higher regions of thought. 
There is much that is inspiring about an old university, with its 
traditions, its broad student life, its many departments, its Avorld- 
wide influence, and its nourishment drawn from all quarters of the 
globe. If great age were necessary to success we might well be dis- 
couraged. But the oldest universities were once young, and some 
of the youngest universities are among the best. We have started 
with the benefit of all past experience. Let us have here the best 
kind of teaching and we shall not fail to have the best kind of 
scholars. Students will come to us in generous numbers if w^e can 
do for them what they need. And I think I cannot be mistaken in 
the belief that as our courses of study in the later years shall grow 
richer in subjects of living interest, and shall prove their real value 
in superadding the most important knowledge to the discipline of 
the earlier years, a constantly increasing number of students will 
be more reluctant than heretofore to leave the University without 
completing its entire course of study. 

The generosity which provides a university for higher education 
ought to be appreciated by parents throughout this state. No bet- 
ter inheritance can be given to a child than a good education. With 
this, unnumbered sources of enjoyment are opened, and the i^ossi- 



34 University of Minnesota^. 

bilitiesof a useful life are increased. It is possible that the educated 
man may sometimes be outstripped in life by the so-called unedu- 
cated. It is quite possible that with widened views of the ever- 
expanding fields of knowledge, and from personal experience of 
other minds brighter than his own, there may come to the student 
a distrust of his own attainments and powers, which may cause 
him to shrink from the rough conflicts of active or professional life. 
It is quite possible that refinement may be gained at the expense of 
vigor. Certainly there is nothing so well-fitted to destroy a man's 
self-conceit as thorough education, and doubtless self-conceit in 
some men is mightier than cultivated intellect in others. But such 
results as I have hinted at are not naturally to be expected from 
education. It is simply reason to believe that a man will succeed 
best with a cultivated and well-informed mind. The history of our 
country proves this. But when one with such a mind fails, as some- 
times happens, he is not even then without his compensations. For 
in his own thoughts and studies in the world in which he has lived 
apart from the great turbulent world of matter in which he has 
made a failure of it, does he not find a delight which goes far towards 
reconciling him to the loss of other things ? 

We ask, then, the people of this State to sustain this University 
by giving to it their sons and daughters to be educated. We ask 
the boys and girls of Minnesota to remember that this University 
exists for them and belongs to them. If they will come to us, we 
will do all that we can to give them discipline, culture, knowledge, 
power— all that we can to ennoble their characters and to confirm 
their devotion to the highest truth. 

It is a delightful experience for a teacher to quicken the intellect 
of a scholar. It is a no less delightful experience for a teacher to 
quicken the moral faculties of a student, and make him strong to 
resist temptations to evil. To win the confidence and regard of his 
pupils, while yet holding them fast to courses of discipline and in- 
spiring them to seek the highest things in knowledge, so that he may 
be to them not merely "guide or philosopher," but "friend," to 
whom, in any emergency, in any moment of special trial, they would 
come with a full assurance of sympathy and help, as they might to 
their own father in the distant home, this, it seems to me, must be 
the crowning joy of the wise educator ; for he knows that so long as 



Inaugural Addresses. 



his pupils are bound to him by the ties of personal affection, his 
power both to stimulate them in intellectual work, and to restrain 
them from everything hurtful will be almost complete. 

I hope there will be developed here, among the students, if it does 
not already exist, a feeling of love for the University — a love that 
shall last as long as life itself. I hope that all our students, as they 
graduate and go out into the world, will look back to this place as 
to what was once their home, and what, in a very high sense, was 
their birth-place ; that they will have pleasant memories of some- 
thing besides recitations and lectures ; that they will recall many a 
word of counsel, of encouragement, of inspiration, given to them 
by the instructors outside the lines of daily routine ; and that, as 
the years pass on, they will love to come back to us and encourage 
us in our work, by showing what noble men and women they have 
become. That is the kind of loyalty to the University we shall 
«eek to inspire, a loyalty born of the remembrance that here, in 
the very crisis of life, kindness and sympathy were experienced, here 
intellectual power and moral earnestness were acquired, and here 
a,n inspiration to a true life was given, an inspiration whose voice has 
been heard in all the years that are past, and, they know, will never 
be silent in the years that are to come. 



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